{"id":3519,"date":"2018-08-07T12:14:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T16:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=3519"},"modified":"2018-08-07T12:14:21","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T16:14:21","slug":"faith-humanity-restored-former-waitress-pays-back-stolen-money-20-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2018\/08\/faith-humanity-restored-former-waitress-pays-back-stolen-money-20-years-later.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith in Humanity Restored: Former Waitress Pays Back Stolen Money 20 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wikimedia<\/a>
Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is extremely irksome what the brain tends to remember. You may struggle to remember what it felt like to freefall when skydiving, but sure as the sky is blue, you remember the humiliation of tripping and falling on your face before giving a speech in front of the class in third grade. It can be infuriating how the embarrassing memories simply keep nagging at you. Embarrassment, humiliation, pain and guilt all seem to stick around. The last one, guilt, is your conscience talking. Even years later, a guilty conscience can still nag at you. Unlike the memory of your third grade face plant, though, that niggle in the back of your brain should remain instead of fading into the ether. Unfortunately, most people become very adept at ignoring old guilt from long ago. Sometimes, however, a person listens to that little voice in the back of their mind and decides to clear their guilty conscience. This is exactly what happened with a former waitress from Arizona.<\/p>\n

A former waitress from the popular El Charro Caf\u00e9 recently cleared her guilty conscience after nearly 20 years. The people she wronged were never even aware of her crime, but the former waitress felt obligated to apologize and make amends anyway. In the 1990s, the former waitress worked for El Charro Caf\u00e9 and a fellow waiter \u201cencouraged [her] to \u2018forget\u2019 to ring in a few drinks a shift and pocket the cash.\u201d The former waitress made no excuses in an anonymous letter of apology she wrote to the owner of El Charro Caf\u00e9, Carlotta Flores. \u201cI [stole the cash.] I grew up in church, I knew better,\u201d the letter read. \u201cI hadn\u2019t stolen a dime before then, nor have I since\u2026It\u2019s been 20 years, but I still carry great remorse. I am very sorry that I stole from you. Please accept my apology and this money as a repayment + 20 years of interest. May God forever bless you and your family.\u201d In the envelope with the letter was $1,000 cash.<\/p>\n

The former waitress\u2019 unexpected apology came at the perfect time for the Flores family. The day before Carlotta received the former waitress\u2019 letter, Carlotta had been robbed. Ray Flores, Carlotta\u2019s son, described how he was shocked and touched when Carlotta showed him the envelope and the letter. \u201cI [said], \u2018Are you for real?\u2019 [Carlotta\u2019s] eyes welled up,\u201d he remembers, \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Can you believe it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The identity of the former waitress remains a mystery, but the Flores have made no secret of their gratitude. \u201cThank you to whomever you are for sending us this letter in a week [when] I really needed to see the good in people,\u201d Ray wrote on Facebook. \u201c[This] definitely restores your faith in humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full text of the letter is available at ChristianHeadlines.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is extremely irksome what the brain tends to remember. You may struggle to remember what it felt like to freefall when skydiving, but sure as the sky is blue, you remember the humiliation of tripping and falling on your face before giving a speech in front of the class in third grade. It can…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":616,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,607],"tags":[854,665],"class_list":["post-3519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-news","category-people-who-do-good","tag-faith-in-humanity-restored","tag-good-deeds"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith in Humanity Restored: Former Waitress Pays Back Stolen Money 20 Years Later<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A former waitress restored the faith in humanity of thousands when she paid back money she stole 20 years ago to people who never knew they were robbed.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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